


the heart of the stone (is where the gems are)

by allapologies



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allapologies/pseuds/allapologies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And it is highly doubtful you agreed to marry Thorin for his looks,” Bofur says.</p><p>“Beg pardon?” Bilbo says.</p><p>“Meaning no offense,” Bofur says, quite cheery. “He is distinctive in his unconventionality, I’ll give you that.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the heart of the stone (is where the gems are)

**Author's Note:**

> I figured that dwarves probably wouldn't have the same beauty standards as humans. So it stands to reason that Thorin, while being absurdly good looking to human eyes, might not be such a hottie to dwarves.

“I’m happy for you, laddie,” Bofur says, puffing on his pipe. He exhales a ring of smoke and Bilbo watches it drift over the balcony and dissolve into the evening sky. “Truly.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Bilbo says, tapping his own pipe against the stone wall and stirring the glowing embers in the bowl.

“Not every day a strapping young hobbit from the Shire gets engaged to the King under the Mountain, is it?” Bofur says with a grin.

“No indeed. Not every day?” and he laughs. “Try not ever. I don’t know when the last time a hobbit even left the Shire was, to be perfectly honest.”

“I can imagine,” Bofur says.

“He built me a garden, though,” Bilbo says.

Thorin had given him a little room on the far western side of the mountain. The stone had been chipped away to open up a roof of sky over fresh beds of good earth and a bench of stone, where one could sit under the sun and breathe in the clean green scent of growing things.

“Did he?” Bofur says. “So that’s why you agreed to marry him, then.”

“Certainly,” Bilbo says. “I married Thorin so that I could fulfill my lifelong dream of growing turnips under the Lonely Mountain,” and Bofur chuckles at that.

They sit in peaceable silence for a while, wrapped in their warm cloaks. Down the mountain slope, Bilbo can see little flickers of fires where the Laketown folk have taken up residence in the skeleton of Dale and begun to rebuild.

“To tell the truth,” Bilbo says suddenly. “I’m a little worried.”

“Oh?”

“The other dwarves,” and he gestures back vaguely at the mountain behind them. “Won’t they think I’m a bit of- you know, an opportunist?”

“They most assuredly won’t,” Bofur says.

“Why so?” Bilbo asks.

“You’ve made it quite evident that you care more for old books and turnips than you ever cared for gold,” Bofur says.

The tips of Bilbo’s ears go red.

“And it is highly doubtful you agreed to marry Thorin for his looks.”

“Beg pardon?” Bilbo says.

“Meaning no offense,” Bofur says, quite cheery. “He is distinctive in his unconventionality, I’ll give you that.”

“Dwarves think Thorin is- not good looking?” Bilbo says.

“Bless you,” Bofur says. “I’ve heard it said that love makes one blind.”

“If Thorin isn’t fair to eye, to dwarves, who is?”

Bofur chews on the stem of his pipe. “Gloin,” he says. “Aye, his wife’s a lucky one. Lovely beard on that dwarf, and quite the face. May his son be so blessed as to take after him.”

“Gloin?” Bilbo says, forehead wrinkling. “I mean-yes, sure.”

“Dori,” Bofur continues. “A bit prissy, if you know what I mean, always very insistent on his waistcoat and his beard braids being just so. But it suits him.”

“I think that I understand how it is, now,” Bilbo says.

“Balin,” Bofur says, no longer paying much attention to Bilbo. “He’s old now, yes, but he was quite the charmer back in the day, wouldn’t you know it. And even now, I’m still jealous of the beard.” Bofur tugs on one of the flaps of his hat.

Bilbo rubs his fingers over his own beardless chin. “I must be hideous to dwarves,” he says.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bofur says. “You’re a hobbit, who would expect you to look beautiful in precisely the way a dwarf would?”

“I suppose,” Bilbo says.

“Why, just look at young Master Kili and the elf lady, there,” Bofur says. “By all rights he should find her far too stretched out and pointy, and she should find him too short and hairy. But they did like each other, straight off.”

“That is true,’ Bilbo says, straightening his shoulders a little more.

“And anyhow, Bilbo Baggins,” Bofur says. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that the heart of the stone is where the gems are?”

“Not in those precise words,” Bilbo says. “But yes.”

 “So hobbits don’t have that saying?” Bofur says.

“No,” Bilbo says. “I don’t believe that we could. There’s not exactly a surplus of gems and stones in Hobbiton.”

“Well, what did your mother tell you, then?”

“You can grow a fine tree without flowers, but you can’t grow any tree at all without good roots,” Bilbo recites.

“There you have it. Hobbits,” Bofur says, smiling. “Kindly children of the West.”

“Gandalf said that once,” Bilbo says.

“Sly old fellow,” Bofur says. “You know, looking back, I do believe he picked you out as burglar for that reason.”

“He chose me because I’m a kindly child?” Bilbo says, and he snorts.

“Quite the opposite, I think,” Bofur says. “I believe that Gandalf led the company to your doorstep because he understood that Thorin would need someone to help him remember that living things and not gold, glittering things are what have true value.”

Bilbo opens his mouth, searching for a humble deflection, but he can’t find a good one. “That was lovely, Bofur,” he says instead.

Bofur’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Cheers,” he says, and he lifts his pipe in a toast.

**Author's Note:**

> hit up starwarring at tumblr.com if you wanna talk Hobbit stuff or whatever


End file.
